And thanks to that now they are a developed, safe country.
> Haiti's first century of independence was characterized by political instability, ostracism by the international community and the payment of a crippling debt to France.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti
The "crippling debt" was that Haiti was forced to compensate France for its loss of slaves.
(As was Israel, a nation founded by Holocaust survivors in a very hostile region, or Poland, bombed to shreds in the Second World War.)
In our compassion to the permanently weak, it is easy to overlook the ones who started out in similar position, but eventually outgrew their problems.
Maybe the suggestion is that they would've eventually gained freedom, like all slaves in Western countries, and that in that alternate history, they would've fared better. After all, the black population in the USA is richer than the black population in Haiti.
Maybe they would've been taken as slaves to the Middle East. By the way, where are the black descendants of the African slaves taken to the Middle East? How do we pay them reparations?
Central American colonial history is incredibly fascinating but also very tragic.
30 years of rule under the Duvalier dynasty held Haiti back in the 20th century much, much more than the country's central debt, but I understand the urge to direct the blame the struggles to one specific cause instead.